The topic of this year’s debates in the Economic and Social Committee is “High costs of medicine and medical care”. Your task is to work on the measures that the UN can take to deal with this alarming problem. My name is Aleksandra Szefer and this year I was honoured to perform the duties of a chairperson in this committee. My co-chair, Federico de Lorenzo and I will do our best to help you approach your challenge which is not easy but can be really interesting.

After reading the topic probably the most of you thought about the developing countries of or those parts of Africa which suffer from extreme poverty as the Ebola epidemy was a frequent topic in the media at the end of 2014. And that is where you were wrong. “U.S. Healthcare: Most Expensive and Worst Performing”, “Why U.S. Health Care Is Obscenely Expensive?” – these are only examples of headlines which you can see above articles on the Internet. Reports by Bloomberg, the Atlantis or the Huffington Post can be perfectly summed up by the quotation from Walter Cronkite who said: “America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.” On the other hand, study shows that the cheapest medical care can be found in Thailand, India, Hungary, Mexico or Poland. According to world rankings is the place that may offer you the best and the cheapest treatment is Singapore, where the level of health care can be compared to this presented by Switzerland, Sweden or Norway.

The prices of medical care can and should be lower all around the world. How to cure the world’s health care system? Do economic powers have weak spots they really regret or is it all done on purpose? Is medical care another mean of manipulation? Is medicine the right field for political or financial games? Can the UN regulate the laws in all of the countries to make proffesional treatment effordable for everyone, not only financially viable for pharmaceutical companies?

All we can do now is get ourselves to work and encourage you to start your research and give you some pieces of advice. First, think of the problem, imagine an ideal situation and then work on the best way to meet your goal. Stick to your opinions but remember to be open-minded. Do not come here with empty heads and do not make writing your resolutions a last-minute thing. You will have, only or even, three days to share your knowledge and ideas with your fellow delegates. It is three days to debate, three days to make a change, three days that can not go to waste. I hope we will all work hard and let your solutions grow on the field of cooperation, fruitful discussions and creativity.